Void
by Clouded Horizon
Summary: All is lost, the void is screaming, and Robin is dying. First Robin Hood fic. R&R, final chapter up!
1. Void

My first Robin Hood fic. Lots of angst. Hope you like it!

Void

Robin Hood screams out in his sleep, straining against the manacles chaining him to the wall of the Nottingham cell. Gisbourne watches from the other side of the bars as his enemy is tortured by his dreams, and thinks of the blood-drenched scenes that will be flashing through the man's mind. He knows that he is the reason Robin is dying in his heart. And he doesn't care.

Gisbourne remembers Hood's little band of followers, fighting the Sheriff's soldiers – and losing. The Moor woman as she lay dying on the ground, the carpenter's son cut down as he defended her body, Robin's loyal manservant beaten to death in front of his eyes. The thief from Lancashire and the big outlaw, knocked out with their master and brought to the torture chambers in the bowels of Nottingham Castle.

Not surprisingly, the thief broke first – Allan, his name had been. After three days of the Sheriff's hospitality, he had given up and been found hanged by his own belt. Nottingham and Gisbourne had taken great pleasure in having the outlaw John Little executed slowly with the man's family and Robin present. Now the Hood himself is the only one left; alone, despairing, slowly losing his hold on life.

Robin gasps and wakes, his eyes red with tears and nightmares. He sees Gisbourne outside his cell and his face twists with hatred. Gisbourne puts on a smile and stands, unlocking the cell door and stepping inside. Robin gets up as best he can to face him, his chains only just long enough.

"Gisbourne," he rasps. "I hope you're satisfied."

"Oh, don't worry, Hood," Gisbourne says, but he sounds hollow to himself. "Marian and I will be perfectly happy together, and as for the children…"

Robin makes as if to lash out, rage and hopelessness in his eyes. Gisbourne hits him viciously in the stomach, making the defeated outlaw fall to his knees, groaning. But the void inside him isn't content. The black, screaming abyss left inside him by the knowledge Marian will never love him shrieks for more pain, for the agonising death of the man who stole the love that should have been his. Gisbourne punches and kicks him over and over, losing control as the faces of Marian and Robin's twin children torment him. He can bring them up as if they were his own, but he will know they aren't – they are the son and daughter of his worst enemy. And if he knows Marian, she will make sure they know too that their real father was a brave, noble outlaw murdered by their mother's husband.

Robin slumps to the floor, unconscious, blood running from the side of his mouth. Gisbourne leaves the prison, fists clenched, eyes bright, the void inside him screaming for release.

A/N: R&R please!


	2. Vow

This time, it's Marion's perspective... thankyou, Entertainedbygrass, for my only review:)

Vow

Marion's heart almost breaks again as she enters the room where her children are sleeping. The twins, not even a year old yet, look so peaceful, curled in their cradles. The elderly nursemaid who has been watching them moves a respectful distance away as Marion gazes down into the cots, her eyes blurring with tears.

Michael and Elisa are so small, so vulnerable, but already she can see so much of their father in them. Robin's face appears in her mind, and she chokes back a sob, not wanting to wake the twins. _How_ _can I go on?_ she thinks desperately. _How can I live without Robin, married to his enemy?_

Every time she holds her children, feels their tiny hearts beating, her own heart bursts with love for them; but as they grow older, she will be able to see more of Robin's features in theirs. Will that make her grief harder or easier to bear?

"Forget him," Guy, her new husband, had commanded her on their wedding day. "He is dead, or close to it. You are mine now."

_He still clings to a sick semblance of love between us, _Marion thinks._ How can he deny that the one man I ever loved is the man he turned in to be murdered?_

Elisa shifts in her blankets, making small baby noises as she dreams. Grief threatens to overwhelm Marion as she remembersthe love in Robin's face as he looked at his son and daughter for the first time, almost eight months ago. It had been a long birth, and an awkward one, in the woods with only Djaq to attend her; but Robin had held Marion's hand all the way, and in the end it had been worth it.

Now it is three days since Guy of Gisbourne married her and took legal guardianship of her children. That wedding had been short, quiet, and bitter; a mere formality to confirm Gisbourne's control of her life. Marion steps away from the cradles, not able to look on the sleeping faces of the twins as she remembers her marriage to Robin.

_The day was beautiful, blue sky strewn with wispy clouds and a light breeze ruffling the flowers in her hair. An old friend of Marion's, a hermit monk who lived in the woods not far from the outlaw camp, took the ceremony, and Will and Much had managed to get a message to her father. It wasn't quite the wedding he had hoped for her, but his face was bright with happiness as he gave his daughter away to the man he knew loved her with all his heart. Marion passed the day in a state of bliss, at the same time regretful and grateful of the small number of guests. And a couple of months later, she found out she was pregnant…_

Bitter hatred for her new husband wells up in Marion. Now Michael and Elisa will have to grow up without their real father, maybe even believing that Gisbourne is that man. Clenching her fists, Marion vows they will know of their true lineage, of the martyred outlaw who loved them so much, even if he will never live to see his children grow.


	3. Vivid

A/N: First off, thankyou Entertainedbygrass and scully42 for my three reviews!

Yeah. Well, this is probably the last chapter. I might - _might_ - try writing a children-of-Robin-Hood fic about Michael and Elisa, although that could go horribly wrong. Anyway, thanks a lot. :)

Vivid

Robin wakes from his nightmares again, his throat dry from screaming and his eyes stinging with tears. He gasps in pain as the manacles on his wrists rub against the raw flesh there and collapses back against the wall, too exhausted to cry anymore, too deep in despair to care.

Again and again, the memories of his outlaws' deaths return to stab at him, filling him with anguish and guilt. _Your fault_, something in his mind whispers treacherously. _It was all your fault. They are dead because of you. You might as well have held the club that crushed Much's skull, the sword that cut down Will. You might as well have kicked the stool from under Little John's feet._

Robin moans, twisting in his chains. He inspired them, woke them up, all but bullied them into standing against the Sherriff's tyranny – and they followed him, and now they are dead.

And Marion…

He feels a physical pain at the thought of her and the twins. Bitter hatred of Gisbourne for stealing them from him leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but more than that, grief seeps throughout his being at the thought of never seeing her again. Dying here alone – for he knows he is dying – and knowing she will live out her life as Lady Gisbourne, forced to bring up their children with the man she hated.

His head aches fiercely; his hair is matted with dry blood. Robin Hood feels his grip on life slipping ever so slightly, growing more tenuous by the second. Delirium threatens to overwhelm him.

He remembers the feeling of being a father for the first time. _Marion's face was flushed, tired, but happy as she rested after the birth. Djaq handed one of the newborn twins, the son, to Robin, and wonderment filled him at the tiny sleeping face and the clutching hands, nails no more than a sliver. Could this little one really be his child? His own son?_

"_Michael," Marion told him, smiling weakly. "That will be his name."_

"_And the little girl?" Robin asked, taking both in his arms. _

"_I don't know… what would you name her, Robin?"_

_Robin looked down at the red-faced baby, who had just barely stopped crying. Love, surprising him with its fierceness, clutched at his heart for both of the twins. "Elisa. My mother's name."_

"_Michael and Elisa." Marion smiled again, and the expression filled her face with happiness. _

He wakes from the vision, and weeps. His children. Oh, Marion!

All his dreams lie shattered, yet dreams are the only thing he has left.


End file.
